Best Balanced Mutual Funds in India

A balanced mutual fund is a fund that invests in both equity and debt, and within equity it invests in large cap, mid cap, and small cap shares as well. These type of funds are meant to diversify away a little of your equity risk by exposure to debt, while maintaining decent returns as well.

In this post I look at some good balanced funds present in the Indian space, and the way Iâ€™ve gone about making this list is to select mutual funds that have been around for at least 5 years or longer, and have performed near the top of their category in that period.

Like the post on best ELSS mutual funds â€“ this one is not in any particular order of returns, but I thought I’d order it according to expenses, and that’s only for my own ease while preparing it.

It doesn’t mean the first one is the best, and the last one worstÂ â€“ thereâ€™s really no way to tell (as far as I know) what fund is going to perform the best in the next few years, and in absence of that you have to narrow down your options and then choose what appears the best to you.

With that said, here is the list of some of the best – balanced mutual funds in India.

I personally prefer HDFC Prudence and Reliance Regular Saving Balance. In equity diversified I prefer HdFC top 200 and for tax saving HDFC tax saver. four mutual funds are enough I feel. however this makes too many from one house HDFC. any suggestions. I am 68.

If you feel if you relying too much on HDFC, I would recommend DSP BlackRock Top 100 Growth instead of HDFC Top 200.

HDFC Top 200 and HDFC Prudence and maintained by the same fund managers except that HDFC Prudence has less equity exposure. HDFC Prudence is one of the best balanced mutual funds in the market and there is no doubt about that.

maybe another worry in buying all mutual funds from one counter is the same style of management in each; thus missing the benefits from other excellent management teams and not diversifying the risk of their mistakes!

Hi Mangshu, Thank you very much for your valuable inputs. They have widened my understanding on these areas.
I invest Rs 2000/ pm in HDFC Top 200 (Growth) and Rs 1000 pm in HDFC TOP200 (Dividend) through SIP. Shall I further invest another Rs2000/pm in HDFC Prudence or go for something else? I also invest equal amount in SBI Magnum Taxgain. (growth and dividend) Could you suggest me whether I am on the right track? Besides, I need to build a corpus of 25 lacs for the education of my children in next 18 years. I would look forward to your suggestion.

Sorry Partha – I don’t advise people on their portfolios because one has to understand the portfolio quite well, and then know your financial goals as well in order to provide any useful advice. I neither have the competence nor the bandwidth to do that.

Yes, your observation is correct – these are annualized returns so you don’t need to divide by the number by 3 but treat it as return that you would have made every year if you were to stay invested for 3 years.

Thanks a lot, I been searching allover for a proper informative blog on balanced fund, and i finally found this. Thanks a lot though i have one question which is most important question a investor should ask himself, should that be the expense ratio or the past performance of that fund???? when selecting one of HDFC funds you have listed in your article.